


Touch

by hellcsweetie



Category: Suits (US TV)
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25552069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellcsweetie/pseuds/hellcsweetie
Summary: Some days, Donna and Harvey touch.
Relationships: Donna Paulsen/Harvey Specter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	Touch

Donna and Harvey are not a particularly physical couple outside of the bedroom. They've had years of experience not touching, staying ten feet away from each other, communicating through looks and quips with veiled meaning. They don't need to touch to show affection, or care, or love.

It's in the way they continue to bring each other coffee in bed, in the way Harvey almost never complains about going to Broadway every single time they come back to New York, and in the way Donna has a list on Netflix of movies she thinks Harvey might like. It's in the way they call each other idiots and let each other see them flustered and stumbling like they would never let anyone else see.

But sometimes, every now and then, after big events or just on a random Saturday morning, it hits them how long they were apart, how long they spent waiting to be exactly as happy as they are now. The decade of longing and wondering piles up and weighs down on their hands, pressing their touch onto each other, branding their fingerprints on each other's skin.

This realization usually hits Donna when the light catches Harvey a certain way, with a golden tint they only get at home, or when he wears her favorite sweater and she remembers she could count on one hand the times she saw him in a sweater before they got together. This realization hits her when he takes his shirt off in the balcony after working out, his skin glistening with sweat; or when he makes her a post-yoga smoothie; or at random moments in the week; or right after they've had sex and she feels an inexplicable and unmatched connection between them.

When it happens after they've had sex, she likes to feel his body on top of hers, his skin cooling, his arms around her chest. She likes to lift her hand to his face, trace the bridge of his nose, the moles above his eyebrow, the slight roughness of his burgeoning stubble. She likes to take her time feeling every last bit of skin under her palm, caressing his ruffled hair, his spine.

She loves how he leans into her touch, how his eyes close and his face turns, almost cat-like, towards her palm, how he nuzzles it with his nose. In those moments they don't smile, or talk, or laugh, they just feel each other's breathing, let their bodies make up for all sorts of lost time.

For Harvey, it happens when she bakes, her hands and her cheek white with flour, her hair in a knot. He likes wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his nose into the curve between her neck and her shoulder and just breathing her in, feeling her scent mix with cinnamon.

It happens when she stretches languidly on the couch during weekends and a soft little moan escapes her. It happens when she cries with movies, and when she lays down on his lap to read a book and he runs his fingers through her hair.

His touch doesn't linger as much as hers; he is still afraid he'll tip over and spill all his love in a way he can never take back. He wouldn't want to, ever, but it still scares him sometimes, how much he feels. So he prefers to touch her more often, connect the freckles on her shoulder while she is still asleep in the morning, caress the base of her spine beneath her shirt whenever he can, press his face into her stomach or her chest or her back and just let her presence calm him.

On those days, his touch is tinged with remorse, they both know it. Remorse and regret at how long he lied to himself, how long he hurt her. They both regret how long they let that charade go on, the play-pretend they built around themselves after their first night together. Most days they choose to focus on how many days they still have ahead, how many years and nights and laughs - and they do focus on that.

But some days they can't let go of the days they left behind, painful days, lonely nights, a cold, sinking fear of never being able to have this. They don't know how long would be long enough to erase that; Donna was right when she said in her vows that she could never have enough time with him.

So some days that imbalance hits them, and they touch, and they let themselves mourn the life they didn't live together during that decade. On those days Harvey can feel so overwhelmed by wistfulness, by the wish to go back in time and rewrite every waking second he didn't spend touching her, that he might seek her out repeatedly. He might interrupt what she's doing, he might join her in the shower, he might wake her up earlier than intended just so he can wrap his arms around her and she can wrap her arms around him and he can miss all the _them_ they didn't manage to be.

When that happens, Donna lets him, gives him time. "You really touch me whenever you feel like it, don't you?" she quips softly, quietly, just to take the edge off, to give him the option to blame it on something else other than the deep longing for home.

"No," he answers seriously, voice equally low, "I touch you a _fraction_ of when I feel like it."

Somehow, that makes the tension of the years and the loss dissipate, and the next time they touch is always light.

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by the dialogue at the end, which is not mine, but comes from the movie Last Night. Thanks for reading :)


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